A Boy's Troubles, and Anger, Had Worried His Neighbors

By RICHARD LEZIN JONES and LESLIE KAUFMAN

Published: March 29, 2003

WOODBRIDGE, N.J., March 28—
It was no secret to those who live in the Colonia section of town here that the 10-year-old in the modest red-brick house by the creek was somebody to worry about.

Judy Brenckman knew the boy's anger. ''A while back, there was a kid on my block that he hit with a baseball bat while they were playing,'' recalled Ms. Brenckman, a school district employee who has known the 10-year-old since first grade. ''The other kid had to get stitches.''

Caseworkers for the state's child welfare agency had intervened for several years to try to stabilize the boy's home and school life, arranging for some form of counseling or tutoring.

And Linda Jones, who lives in a house behind the 10-year-old's home, said she had seen the baseball bat, too. She said that the boy beat her hedges with the bat and scribbled on a fence with markers. It got so bad two weeks ago that she made a telephone call to her local councilman asking him to take action. ''Something bad is going to happen to that family,'' she said she told him.

But now the authorities believe that the boy's capacity for trouble exceeded even his neighbors' worst fears: on Thursday he was charged with murder, making him one of the youngest people ever charged with such a crime in New Jersey. The 10-year-old, whose name was not publicly released, was being held in Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center on charges that he lured Amir Beeks, 3, from a local library, clubbed him with a baseball bat, sexually assaulted him and left him to die.

The death, and the charges against the 10-year-old, have shocked this city and shaken every level of government, from the prosecutor's office to the State Division of Youth and Family Services. Today Gov. James E. McGreevey called for a full accounting of the child's dealings with the state. He specifically demanded that Gwendolyn L. Harris, the commissioner of the state's Department of Human Services, produce a detailed record of what the child welfare agency did or did not do to investigate and help the boy.

''The governor has asked Commissioner Harris for a timeline and has asked her about what role DYFS played in the suspect's life,'' said Ellen Mellody, a spokeswoman for the governor.

It was unclear, however, whether the governor would be able to make that accounting public. Mr. McGreevey's office and Ms. Harris have been at odds about how much of this case to make public, officials close to both sides acknowledged. Late today, a Family Court judge issued an order to prevent any state workers with knowledge of the 10-year-old's case from speaking publicly.

Amir's death comes on the heels of a disastrous and deadly case that involved the agency. The governor called for sweeping reforms of the agency in January after the death of 7-year-old Faheem Williams, whose body was found in a locked Newark basement. A caseworker with the agency had closed Faheem's file despite outstanding allegations of abuse.

The case file for the 10-year-old here had been closed since July 2002, but state officials and a child welfare worker who have seen the file said that preliminary indications were that the agency had followed its own guidelines in serving the youngster.

''DYFS is clean on this one,'' said one person with knowledge of the case file.

The child welfare worker said the file made clear that outside help from teachers and therapists had been provided, and that their work with the boy had been deemed successful.

The worker said there were no findings, and perhaps not even any allegations, that the 10-year-old had been physically abused. And the worker said the file included no attachments or other indications that the agency had received calls alleging abuse after the case was closed.

Officials and the worker said the 10-year-old's file did show, however, that numerous calls had been made to the agency charging the boy's parents with neglect, but that none had ever been substantiated. Furthermore, the boy had recently been in counseling sessions and one-on-one tutoring sessions at the same library where the authorities say he abducted the 3-year-old.

The adults involved in those sessions were enthusiastic about the child's progress as of last summer and reported that both his grades and behavior were improving, the child welfare worker said. In addition, a vocational counselor from the state Commission on the Blind and Visually Impaired who had visited the house on numerous occasions said that the father, who is legally blind, was an adequate parent.

Prosecutors had no comment on the case today. A public defender has been appointed for the child, who is expected to be arraigned in court on Monday.

This afternoon, Amir's family, which lives a mere half-mile from the 10-year-old's family, showed as much sympathy as rage toward the boy charged with killing their toddler.

''He shouldn't go to jail,'' Amir's mother, Rosalyn Singleton, said in an emotional interview today. ''He needs help. I know he has mental problems, and if he goes to jail he'll just come out an angry adult.''

Amir, too, had been known to the child welfare agency: as a baby, those with knowledge of his records say, he had been exposed to drugs by his biological mother, but had since been adopted by Ms. Singleton, and was a day away from moving with his adopted family to Georgia to start a new life.

Today, interviews with neighbors, acquaintances, former teachers and others yielded a disturbing but incomplete portrait of the 10-year-old -- a boy who had lost his mother to cancer when he was 8, and who had lived with his blind father as his lone parent.

Some swore that the father both cared for, and depended deeply on, his son. They talked of hiking trips, and of how the boy often served as his father's eyes getting around the neighborhood.

Others said it was clear that the boy was often left on his own, unsupervised and wild. And one neighbor said the house the boy lived in had often seemed to function as a kind of boarding house for men who bought liquor on the corner and loitered in the street.

''It seemed like they were using it as a halfway house,'' said Al Gabany, who lives across the street from the 10-year-old's home. ''There were all these guys -- black, white, blue, red, whatever -- and they'd go up to the corner and get liquor and bring it back there.''

Friends and neighbors said that while they sometimes saw the 10-year-old and his father engage in shouting matches on the street, they also recalled more tender moments, like the time when the son would guide his father down the street for trips to the post office or to buy lottery tickets.

''I always saw him holding his father by the hand, leading him across the street,'' said Toni Kvist, who lives one block from the home. ''I thought: 'What a sweet kid.' ''

Not far from the 10-year-old's home is the muddy culvert where the authorities found Amir's body on Wednesday afternoon. This afternoon, there was an expanding shrine of teddy bears, flowers and votive candles pressed against the chain link fence above the culvert.

Over at Amir's home, his family clutched photos of the 3-year-old as they spoke to reporters. Down the block, Darlene Young considered the victim and accused and sadly shook her head. ''Everybody's a victim here,'' she said.

Photo: Rosalyn Singleton, right, the mother of Amir Beeks, 3, who was lured from a library and fatally beaten, with her grandmother, Vera Tuddles. (Associated Press)(pg. D4)